Ex-US Air Force officer 'spied for Iran'

Former US Air Force intelligence officer Monica Witt has been charged with aiding Iran in a cyber spying operation after defecting to the nation in 2013.

Andy Sullivan and Lisa Lambert

ReutersFebruary 14, 20194:14am

The US has charged former Air Force intelligence officer Monica Witt with helping Iran in a cyber spying operation that targeted her former colleagues.

As part of its action, the US also charged four Iranian nationals who it said were involved in the cyber attacks.

Washington also sanctioned two Iran-based firms - New Horizon Organisation and Net Peygard Samavat Company - and several individuals associated with them.

US officials said Witt, who defected to Iran in 2013, supplied classified information about US intelligence officers she had worked with in her military career.

She remains at large.

Witt, 39, was recruited for the operation after attending two conferences in Iran organised by New Horizon, which supported efforts by Iran's Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force to recruit and collect intelligence from foreign attendees, the officials said.

Witt served as a counterintelligence officer in the Air Force from 1997 until 2008 and worked as contractor for two years after that.

During that time, she was granted high-level security clearances, learned Farsi at a US military language school, and was deployed overseas for counterintelligence missions in the Middle East.

Using information supplied by Witt, Net Peyguard launched a cyber campaign in 2014 that targeted her former colleagues using fictional social media accounts and other forms of deception to try to install malware that would be able to track their keystrokes and other activity, according to an indictment unsealed by the US Justice Department.

Net Peygard targeted current and former US government and military personnel with a malicious cyber campaign, officials said.